Stuttgart Ballet’s Mackenzie Brown is promoted to Principal Dancer
After her debut as Juliet in John Cranko‘s Romeo and Juliet on 22 October 2023, Mackenzie Brown, Soloist with the Stuttgart Ballet, was promoted to Principal Dancer by Artistic Director Tamas Detrich.
Mackenzie Brown grew up in Stafford, Virginia (USA). She began dance classes at the Barton & Williams School of Classical Dance and continued her classical ballet training at the Classical Ballet of Fredericksburg. In 2016 she won a scholarship to the Académie de Danse Classique Princess Grace in Monte Carlo from which she graduated in 2020. In 2019 she participated at the Prix de Lausanne and won the Gold medal, the Contemporary Dance Prize as well as the Audience Favourite Prize. In March 2023 she won the Erik Bruhn Prize.
Brown became a member of Stuttgart Ballet’s corps de ballet in 2020. After a very successful first season she was promoted to Demi-Soloist, at the beginning of the 2022-2023 season to Soloist.
Her repertory includes solo roles such as Olga in Onegin and Bianca and pas de six in The Taming of the Shrew (John Cranko), Aurora in Marcia Haydée‘s The Sleeping Beauty (after Petipa), Aurora in Aurora’s Nap (Johan Inger), Prudence Duvernoy in The Lady of the Camellias (John Neumeier) and Princess Louise in Mayerling (Kenneth MacMillan), as well as solo roles in ballets by John Cranko, William Forsythe, Marco Goecke, Johan Inger, Jiří Kylián, Hans van Manen and Christian Spuck. The choreographers Mauro Bigonzetti, Alessandro Giaquinto, Vittoria Girelli, Marco Goecke and Roman Novitzky have created roles for her.
After her debut as Juliet, together with Principal Dancer Martí Fernández Paixà as Romeo, Artistic Director Tamas Detrich appointed her to Principal Dancer on stage. Detrich said,
Mackenzie has a brilliant technique, a natural acting talent as well as a stage presence that makes every performance a stellar event.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
Loved her at Lausanne. So happy for her.